SON!! I broke the computer!!

[brodie21]

i have Avast, Spybot- Search and Destroy, and Norton. i feel pretty safe.

Norton. i feel pretty safe.

Norton. i feel safe.

Norton. feel safe.

Norton. safe.

No.
Uninstall Norton. Keep Avast and Spybot S&D

why?

At the moment all Norton is doing is slowing down your computer.
It's not good to run two anti-viruses in parallel, they can interfere with each other
Avast (Or possibly Spybot S&D) can already do everything Norton can, Faster.

cool, thanks

 

[feather240]

My dad has been working with computers since they took up a whole room, so I was pretty much raised on them. With that said, I don't understand how my mom can barely check her e-mail, and my brothers often can't figure out how to "turn on the internet."

My dad is currently the director of network services at a university, and I work in the laptop service center at the same place. You wouldn't believe some of the PEBKAC problems we get here. It's an arts school, so a lot of the people we service are 'ar-teests" who don't have to treat us with any kind of respect. I have a lovely little collection of RAM I've removed from the computers of individuals who treated me like a lesser life form because I'm either A) working in a service industry or B) a girl.

That's... That's just beautiful. I never thought- It's just. I don't even- What is- Just, "Whoa". You deserve some kind of trophy.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

My family had a good history with computers, my Dad was a genius with them, or at least used a good problem-solving approach, and my Mom is no idiot either. Thank goodness!
What IS stupid is that my 4.0 GPA friend couldn't figure out how to install the Orange Box, since it was a PC CD and he had a Mac. What he had to do after weeks of stubborn confusion was download steam, make an account, open the box, look at the CD code, and type that in.
Great job valedictorian!

 

[runnernda]

I'm not asian, so yeah, I'd totally pwn you regarding sizes, tho I'd prefer having boobs than a dick, would be a lot more fun .

Well, my ex's friend was ok too, if I'd want a one nighter (she was one of the hottest girls I've ever seen in my entire life, awesome body), too bad I wasn't single ... and too bad she was so braindead ... plus she had a twin sister which was into networking or some other computer related stuff ... I am in no way making up ANY of this, if I would be the regretful/emo/gothic/insert-shitty-"subculture"-here kind of guy, I would have killed myself for not boning them.

Haha, my step-dad was a lot worse, the guy managed to spill every concieveble drink on his poor laptops, from beer, to whiskey, even wine FFS, I can't tell you how sticky the keys get after half of bottle of wine in the keyboard.

Back to the subject at hand, they're too "special" to be concerned about such insignificant things as "comprehension"
I might be in for a disappointment, but what exactly did the guy think a fresh image meant?

Off-topic, but here's a question for the ladies: How come a lot of chicks are into the "artist" kind of guys? Not that I have something against art, but most guys that dare call themselves "artists" are actually stupid twats that don't know squat about art and don't do anything except whine. Don't get me wrong, I sometimes "whine" too, but in my case, it's a lot more aggressive (it's actually a better mean of taking out huge amounts of pressure without having to repair/replace random stuff in your house).

I mean, do they REALLY find the twats smarter than the average Joe?
Oh BTW, from what the teachers in that school taught the poor bastards, an artist IS supposed to "suffer for their work" or something. Seriously, the chick wasted our time telling us how it was so true and whatnot, and what from I could tell, she was really buying into that bullshit.

Who in their right fucking mind would want to suffer while working, as if the boredom of work isn't enough? I mean hey, I've got huge back problems because of one of my jobs and a lot of random accidents, and I sure wouldn't want them to get worse just because some asshole's telling me they should ... Who's with me on the non-retard train? lol

You want mine? They're more trouble than they're worth...although they do save me money when I go out to bars with my friends

I had a laptop that someone spilled milk in on Friday night, and they brought it in Monday morning...I'm just glad I had a cold and couldn't smell nearly as well as I normally can.

According to him, he said that he heard a fresh image would make his computer go faster. We told him verbally that it would delete all of his files. He signed a form that said he understood his files would be deleted and he wouldn't hold us responsible for lost data. Then he was all upset when his files were gone. Forget comprehension; we need to work on listening and reading first. Seriously, my job description should have included "You're the messenger who gets murdered. This is Sparta."

I am not generally attracted to artistic types, possibly because my job is so saturated with them that I crave variety in my personal life? It's more likely that I see through the pretentious bull they spout. I think that's why girls tend to be attracted to them. Artistic types tend to be masters of sounding like they know what they're talking about, and they tend to be secure in their beliefs, no matter how ridiculous they are. A lot of girls aren't smart enough to see through that, so they think they're with a smart guy. Smart girls tend to know better and go for guys who actually do know what they're talking about instead of being pretentious and stupid. Also, artsy guys seem to think they're better than most people, which can be seen as confidence. And since they're so "tortured by their genius," it taps into a girl's maternal instinct to take care of them.

That's just my two cents.

 

[chris89300]

You want mine? They're more trouble than they're worth...although they do save me money when I go out to bars with my friends

I had a laptop that someone spilled milk in on Friday night, and they brought it in Monday morning...I'm just glad I had a cold and couldn't smell nearly as well as I normally can.

According to him, he said that he heard a fresh image would make his computer go faster. We told him verbally that it would delete all of his files. He signed a form that said he understood his files would be deleted and he wouldn't hold us responsible for lost data. Then he was all upset when his files were gone. Forget comprehension; we need to work on listening and reading first. Seriously, my job description should have included "You're the messenger who gets murdered. This is Sparta."

I am not generally attracted to artistic types, possibly because my job is so saturated with them that I crave variety in my personal life? It's more likely that I see through the pretentious bull they spout. I think that's why girls tend to be attracted to them. Artistic types tend to be masters of sounding like they know what they're talking about, and they tend to be secure in their beliefs, no matter how ridiculous they are. A lot of girls aren't smart enough to see through that, so they think they're with a smart guy. Smart girls tend to know better and go for guys who actually do know what they're talking about instead of being pretentious and stupid. Also, artsy guys seem to think they're better than most people, which can be seen as confidence. And since they're so "tortured by their genius," it taps into a girl's maternal instinct to take care of them.

That's just my two cents.

This ... is ... SPARTA !!!

I got a paternal paternal instinct that tells me to murder them so if I ever have kids, they grow up in a less stupid and pretentious world, but hey, that doesn't mean I do it
Indeed, couldn't stand someone whining all day long, everyday, about how life mistreats them and their pseudo-genius.

I've got an even better example of stupidity: One of my friends gets a call from a dude (she's an administrator in a bank, mostly takes care of the database from what she said, but she also acts as tech support for a little extra cash) saying his PC (a Desktop, remember that) "stopped working".

It went something like this:

-Are you one of those idiots that can't sit in front of their PCs without unplugging a cable with their feet?
-No, I didn't do anything, it just stopped working.
-Check the cables anyway.
-I can't, there's no light.
-... turn the lights on?
-I can't.
-Why not?
-Electricity went out.
(She hangs up)

 

[Gerhardt]

Hehe, we should compare sizes. I mean collection sizes, sheesh .

Usually, people in "art" schools are pompous and stupid little shits that consider any form of random paint brush wiggling art.

To stay on topic tho, I truly feel sorry for the guys working at tech support and such. I know I wouldn't be able to take it, since I'm extremely intolerant of stupidity.
The only stupidity I put up with is my family's. I recently reinstalled Windows on my mom's PC, put 7 in, cuz, y'know, it's 7, and guess what? She managed to download some crap, that, from what I can tell, damaged her graphics card's BIOS, now the only thing that can boot is Win7, not even the oldest and lamest version of Linux I could find, and that, without installing the ATI drivers, cuz once I do, it just ruins everything. And just 2 days before the incident, I told her not to download ANYTHING without asking ME first, but noooo.
BTW, the PC's a laptop.

Anyways, been thru most of what you guys said, and I think the problem is stupidity, as always, people don't even TRY to understand how PCs work or what they're doing on them on a daily basis.

Our RAM collections might be comparable, but were we to compare sizes the other way, you'd totally have me beat...at least, I hope so since I'm a girl.

And tell me about it with the art students. Some of them are okay, but others just don't understand that some things CAN'T BE FIXED.

"I have to present my portfolio tomorrow!"
"Well, maybe you should have backed up your portfolio...and spilling coffee on your computer isn't helping."

"Where are all my files?
"You asked for a fresh image on your hard drive...we told you that would erase everything."
"I didn't think my files would go away!"

Honestly, this school accepts real winners.

I am honestly ashamed of this. As a fine art major myself, I apologize for all these scrubs you have to deal with. We're not all that bad... not all of us ;_;

Then again I work in hot glass, not "oh look, I took a black and white photo of an old man on a bench. I must be so brooding and deep." So that might help...

OT: I was also the tech support ***** in the family. My mother manages pretty well on her own, my dad was awful though. I got the dreaded 11:00pm phone calls too.

"The computer's not working."
"Okay, well what did you do?"
"I didn't do anything! Just tell how to fix it!"
"Okay, okay, well what's wrong it it?"
"I told you, it's not working."
"for fuck's sake... I'll be over in the morning." /wrist


However, I have to give the techno-tard award to my mother in law. Aside from the fact that's she using a store-built economy model that's about... 13 or 14 years old now. But this had to be the best:

"I can't log in."
"Okay, describe what you're looking at"
"It's telling me to press F2. I'm pressing the keys but they aren't working!"
"Wait... Are you pressing F and 2 or F2?"
"What's the difference?"

/facepalm.

 

[chris89300]

Don't apologize for stuff you didn't do man

 

[Carlston]

So glad I grew up with pc's, dos and all...

So now i'm old I don't have that fake "I got left behind." mentality.

 

[Enigma6667]

...claiming firefox was too hard to use and IE was faster and easier.

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[Sneaky Paladin]

I usually have to deal with the

" Son the computer stopped working I need help. "

" Is it plugged in "

" I don't know. I need you to check "

/sigh

 

[Calatar]

Oh, and for the Norton related questions: It's a piece of crap, uses more resources than malware, if you need an antivirus, get one of the many free solutions out there, they're usually a lot more efficient, even if not perfect, since perfection doesn't exist, and even if it did, we all have different definitions of it.

This used to be true, but I actually did some research into the best antivirus out there about 2 months ago. Symantec now has one of the leanest antivirus programs out there right now, to my surprise. And to my further surprise, Microsoft's free antivirus is also really good. Good as in beating many other paid antivirus programs in detection while being lighter in resource-usage.

This site has extensive and thorough testing of many AVs.
I narrowed down the best ones to: Avira, ESET, F-Secure, G DATA, Kaspersky, Microsoft and Symantec.

 

[chris89300]

Oh, and for the Norton related questions: It's a piece of crap, uses more resources than malware, if you need an antivirus, get one of the many free solutions out there, they're usually a lot more efficient, even if not perfect, since perfection doesn't exist, and even if it did, we all have different definitions of it.

This used to be true, but I actually did some research into the best antivirus out there about 2 months ago. Symantec now has one of the leanest antivirus programs out there right now, to my surprise. And to my further surprise, Microsoft's free antivirus is also really good. Good as in beating many other paid antivirus programs in detection while being lighter in resource-usage.

This site has extensive and thorough testing of many AVs.
I narrowed down the best ones to: Avira, ESET, F-Secure, G DATA, Kaspersky, Microsoft and Symantec.

Yeah, I'm using Avira, but it sometimes ... forgets to update on its own, wtf

 

[Cornish]

My father is probably better with nearly all tech than me... but he still uses IE. I cringe... every time I see it.

 

[T-Bone24]

I managed to do a complete system restore, install a new version of Firefox (sans all previous extensions) and install Google Chrome on my family computer all without anyone in my family noticing. I'd say they're not the most observant people, computer-wise, in the world. Neither am I, though.

But, anything goes wrong in or around the computer is always my fault. Why? "Because you spend the most time there."

That's like saying:
"All of America's problems are the Natives' fault."
"Why?"
"Because they spent the most time there."

 

[open trap]

Son help your sister turn the DVD Player on no one can figure out how to make it work, Finbe dad, *looks at DVD player* i found the problem, what is it, you never turned it on

 

[itsnotyouitsme]

Ok, my parents know how to use the internet like my dog knows how to use my phone. However most retarded, for me that is, story actually is from my brother. He's 24 now and married so ill count him. He was helping my parents with their computer since it was running slow and would freeze and reset every now and then. After running some diagnostics(ironically he is the computer guy in our family which makes this even worse) he decided to wipe the computer and reinstall windows. After formatting and reinstalling, he went to ohio and i was told to fix it up again. I installed the programs and everything was fine for about a day. So i take a look at it. It takes me all of 5 minutes to figure out the problem and fix it by taking out the quilt made from dust out of the cpu fan. The simplest answer is usually the best.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

A couple of weeks ago, my aunt called me for a computer-related problem, since I'm one of the most computer-savvy and accessible people in my family. She calls me about her computer constantly restarting throughout the day. I drive over to her place because talking her through a computer-related problem only made us both angry. She's wondering why the computer is constantly restarting, and she's thinking a virus is doing all of this. I use her virus scanner (which my aunt had no idea existed) and nothing came up, so that was checked off. Then she tells me her internet is slow. I click on IE and I see an array of toolbars and useless shit, so I told her I was gonna get rid of all but Google toolbar and a couple other things. Then I defragment her computer and replace IE with Firefox (with no objections aside from a few questions regarding it).

After all that, the computer still restarted three consecutive times before it could reach the desktop. I turn it off and went to examine the hardware itself, and boy was it dusty. It took some effort, but I negotiated through the jungle of vines and opened the case, and nearly everything had this... this thick, dusty sludge on and in it, the fans and graphics card suffering the most. I told my aunt and anyone nearby watching me that this dust and sludge is what was causing the overheating and computer restarting. Cue an hour of me cleaning the parts until they shone. Everything gets put in its place and the computer works properly.

I should have gotten paid for that.

 

[Iznat]

My mother insisted I install Windows 7 for her, which I did. I kept copies of all her notes (she's doing some kind of college course) in a HDD, and they were in Windows.old, but when I installed Open office as opposed to Word, she refused to use it, and threatened to take my new laptop instead, because with Notepad, it came out in gibberish.
It also took her a solid three weeks of instruction to learn to save things as .doc instead of .odt

My dad is too proud to admit defeat, and too impatient to really let me fix anything. He has a nasty habit of refusing to update anti virus software or not running spyware scans. He has a lot of experience with Windows.... 98, so he thinks he's the bee's knees with PCs.
He's not too bad though, I have him using Torrents instead of Limewire (people STILL use it? O_O)

My sister (ANOTHER one) is a tard. MSN add ons, toolbars, widgets, you name it, she's downloaded it.
It.
Is.
Infuriating.

EDIT: I've only just remembered our old family computer - it took 45 minutes to boot up.
Everything auto booted, the fans roared, there were three or four different anti viral software running at any one time, but no spyware software, 512 MB of RAM, 100GB hard drive, Windows XP, installed in French, with a French Command Prompt, and a hugely outdated BIOS.
And whenever I cleared it out, I got into shit for it, 'cause I had to have been "deleting all our memories."
The HD is at a friend's house, waiting to be sifted through.
Can't wait O_<